Honestly, this episode forever sealed my belief that Gary is and always will be a better trainer than Ash, even after he retired, no one can change my mind.
The reason, because in this episode it was stated that not only did Gary capture a lot of Pokemon, but he rotated between them AND he came up with strategies both before and during his gym battles.
Now in this episode Ash stated he doesn't care that he didn't capture many Pokemon since they were all his friends, except at that point he caught Krabby, Muk, and 30 Tauros and never called upon them, effectively breaking that Aesop made worst because it was arguably not the first time the show did that nor the last. I won't go into detail on that because I don't want to sound like I am ranting.
and yes I am aware that a lot of problems the show suffered over time originated from the original series, but at the time they were arguably tolerable since the show was just starting out .